


The Well in the Garden

by Lemur710



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M, but mostly love, references to ghosts and sadness, short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 03:15:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11118765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemur710/pseuds/Lemur710
Summary: “You okay?” Alec asked. His hand sought out Magnus’s, chilled fingers stroking his.“I am.”“You don’t seem okay. Sitting out here in the dark by this well that nobody uses anymore…” Alec peered down its depths once more. “…that's definitely haunted.”“Aren’t we all?” Magnus joked.





	The Well in the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story out of time. I have no idea when this is meant to take place, or even where they are or what's happening. I imagine they're at some country bed & breakfast, but it's not terribly relevant. This was written off a prompt ("There was a legend about the well in the garden") because I've missed writing Magnus Bane and have a lot of feelings. So, here is something short and sweet.

There was a legend about the well in the garden. Some tale of drowned loves—or was it babies? Magnus couldn’t remember now, save for the reported hauntings that were always women and always in white. The proper attire for a ghost, he supposed.

The dewy grass wetted his boots and chilled his toes through the polished black leather. He trailed a palm over the irises growing high on either side of the trail, their white petals ghostly in the black night, cool and soft against his skin. He closed his eyes and lifted his chin to breathe deep through his nose; he smelled damp earth and rainfall. The crickets chirped an incessant hum.

It was peaceful and Magnus wanted to feel peace.

He dropped his hands and let his shoulders droop a moment later. Lowering his chin, he let his eyes open again to the empty garden and its legendary well. He walked forward, the shushing fabric of his trousers and suitcoat seeming unnatural amid the crickets and distant owl hoots. When he sat, the well’s stone edge felt almost ice cold. It seeped through the seat of his pants and chilled his thighs. It was colder still against his fingertips as he braced himself and leaned over.

Far below, darkness. A void. Darkness so dark his eyes could never adjust. But also, a glimmer, the faintest thread of trembling moonlight on an inky, inscrutable surface, and Magnus decided it was a mirror. 

“What are you doing out here?” 

Magnus turned to see Alec strolling over, his pale skin ghostly like the irises but his smile much warmer. 

“Our room’s ready,” Alec said as he sat down beside him, their knees barely touching. He craned a look over the stone edge. “This looks deep.”

“Well...” Magnus replied dryly, and Alec snorted.

“Well. Right.” He huffed a laugh and turned his attention back to Magnus. 

And Magnus just looked at him. The crickets continued their unceasing rhythm and somewhere nearby a bullfrog croaked its ungainly serenade. As usual, Alec wore all black, his body a shadow against the sallow stone of the well and the night-black green of the irises, bushes and trees all around them. The dim moon lined the shine of his eyes with white. Supernaturally beautiful, this miraculous man who’d found him.

“You okay?” Alec asked. His hand sought out Magnus’s, chilled fingers stroking his. 

“I am.”

“You don’t seem okay. Sitting out here in the dark by this well that nobody uses anymore…” Alec peered down its depths once more. “…that's definitely haunted.”

“Aren’t we all?” Magnus joked, but the way Alec turned back to him showed he clearly didn’t find it funny. That moonlight in his eyes shined worry. Magnus shook his head, waved away the concern before Alec could give it voice. “I’m okay, I promise, Alexander. I just...”

“Just what?”

“I just feel sad. I don’t have a reason. Or I have too many reasons.” He shrugged lightly, or tried to, and looked back down into the mirroring well, that darkness clinging to its glimmer of light.

His fingers dropped back to the cold stone as Alec let go, and earlier in their relationship, Magnus’s heart might have leapt in sudden fear of being left for being sad. But that wasn’t his Alexander, not now, not anymore, never again.

Alec stood, crossed, and sat back down behind him, straddling the well and fearlessly letting one long leg dangle down into the abyss. “C’mere,” he murmured, arms sliding around Magnus’s broad shoulders. The corner of Magnus’s mouth lifted and he settled himself back against Alec’s chest, felt the press of chilled lips against the shell of his ear. Magnus closed his eyes; the crickets, the bullfrog serenade, and Alec’s own steady, familiar breath.

“The lady inside was telling me about the ghost people say they see here,” Alec whispered after a few moments of silence. He rocked gently, side to side, with Magnus held warmly to him. A breeze fluttered through the irises and Magnus felt as though they were simply swaying with all the other living things. “She said that people see a young woman dressed all in white.”

Magnus’s lips twisted, amused. “You want to sit in the dark and tell ghost stories?”

“I actually thought it was a pretty story.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, she says—Mrs. Raddock inside—she says everyone gets it all wrong.”

“Tell me.”

“She said the woman was named Bridget Ainsley and everybody says she was young, but she was old,” Alec said. “Very old for the time—she lived to be 103, apparently. She had the records.”

“And the time was?” 

“Oh, 1820s—1823, or ‘24,” Alec replied. “I think you said you were in France.”

“I did say that.” Magnus smirked.

“Uh-huh,” Alec replied fondly. “Anyway, Bridget was old and not doing well, so they had her on bedrest, and basically, everyone was just waiting for her to be gone. Then, one night she was. Only, like really gone. Her kids came into her room and her bed’s empty and the window’s open. They looked for her all over the place and couldn’t find her. Then, someone comes here, and there she is. Curled up by this well with an old letter in her hand. She was old and sick and she walked all the way here. Mrs. Raddock says it was five miles.”

A bullfrog croaked closer, its low, hollow call echoing off the walls of the well below. Alec sniffled in the cold, but his grip stayed steady, the sway of their bodies without pause. “Turns out,” he said, “Bridget had been in love when she was young, with her friend Sarah. They used to meet here every day after school until Sarah moved away and they both had to get married. Mrs. Raddock said they found hundreds and hundreds of letters and poems they wrote to each other over the years, visits they had, and they died within a day of each other, even though they were hundreds of miles apart.”

“That’s tragic.”

“It is,” Alec agreed. “But I liked what Mrs. Raddock said about it, about why people think Bridget’s young. Or why the ghost they think they see is young.”

The wind blew again, like a soft breath across them, and Magnus gently blinked his eyes open. “What’d she say?” he asked, a whisper.

“She said, ‘They see her young because she’s happy. Because Sarah’s here too.’ I don’t know. I know it’s sad, but I thought it was sweet. Sad but sweet. Like you right now.”

Magnus smiled lightly as Alec kissed his cheek and nuzzled a cold nose against the warm skin of his neck. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too,” Alec whispered. 

Magnus let out a long, peaceful breath, though sadness still pressed down heavily on his heart. Sadness, but in Alec’s arms, he felt loved, and before he closed his eyes again, he caught barely a glimpse of white amongst the lilies.


End file.
